


On Consideration

by kerithwyn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerithwyn/pseuds/kerithwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot has a fleeting thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Consideration

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even remember how or why I started this--possibly there was some kind of interaction between Eliot and Sophie early on.

Eliot meets Sophie's eyes across the table during a briefing and there's a moment, maybe, and then he reflects all in an instant:

She's Nate's--not girl, but interest. You don't mess with the boss's interest.

Eliot learned that lesson a long time ago. The wives and girlfriends and even the regular call girls of the lowlifes he used to work flirted with him, a lot, mostly out of boredom with being ignored when they weren't of immediate use to the given lowlife. They were sparkling trophies, as much adornment as the ice on their ears and necks, and often accorded less worth. Eliot learned to be scrupulously polite, carefully distant, and completely unaffected by their wiles.

You don't shit where you eat. You don't fuck there, either, because no one was as quick to take offense to his honor as a man who had none, and touching one of his women--one of his *possessions*--was the surest way to end your employment in the most final way possible.

None of that applied here. Nate was as far a cry from Eliot's former bosses as it was possible to get, except in the moments where the lines on his face go tight as a signal that someone was about to have a really, really bad day. Sophie wasn't Nate's, not in any actual way, and Eliot wasn't even sure the man was ever going to act on the obvious mutual attraction there.

And Sophie had never been a trophy but a survivor, like him. You could see it in her eyes, the way she measured the feel of a room and checked for the exits first. Nate was--well, Nate was a victim who had learned to fight back, and good for him, but that wasn't the same thing. Parker was a survivor too, but damaged around the edges and in all the cracks in between. Hardison--Hardison seemed to be in it for kicks, mostly, excited about playing the robber part of cops-and-robbers without actually being the bad guy.

Eliot had been the real bad guy too often to play at it, and what they had going now felt much cleaner. Almost like absolution for the things he's done, a chance to make amends for at least a few of his crimes. Sophie lived by her wits the way he'd lived by his fists, but she'd done plenty of harm too, and maybe she also felt like she was paying some of that back.

They had that in common, maybe more, but even so. Even if she wasn't Nate's--okay, granted that she wasn't Nate's--hooking up with members of your team remained a bad idea, kind of like dating within your own gene pool. It always resulted in complications, mutations in the structure of how things worked, and Eliot was perfectly capable of getting his ya-yas out elsewhere.

So the next time their eyes meet Eliot just smiles and looks away, and he lets the moment pass.


End file.
